City of Austin Resilience Hub Planning

Background

The general goal of the COA resilience hubs are neighborhood sites for disasters that provide the necessary power and water redundancies, shelter, heating, cooling, and refrigerated storage and walkable within 15 minutes for every Austin resident. The sites will be existing physical spaces (e.g., recreation centers, schools, churches, nonprofit spaces) and important social spaces where people can congregate, exchange information and will help residents prepare for climate impacts, respond when an event occurs, and help neighborhoods recover after an event has occurred. These goals align with the general policy discourse on resilience hubs as community-serving facilities augmented to support residents and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, and and/or after a natural hazard event.

COA Planning Meetings and Participants

The City of Austin has convened meetings to plan for the implementation of the COA Resilience Hubs. In total, 34 meetings/events have occurred between January and May 2022. The data for the analysis below is generated from the participant list at each of the planning meetings. A total of 103 different individuals have attended at least 1 meeting.

Methods

We can better understand how the participants interact over the course of these meetings by creating a participant-meeting matrix. We can move from this participant-meeting matrix (in network terms this is considered a bi-partite netowrk) and create a participant-participant list by multiplying the matrix (M) by the transpose of the matrix (T). MxT = a participant-participant list.

Building a network from an adjacency matrix

From the adjacency matrix we can build a graph object using igraph in R. This graph object can be displayed as a network. Therefore, the stakeholder attendance at planning meetings forms the basis for network analysis, with the co-attendance of two individuals at the same meeting defining an interaction of those two individuals.

Network clusters

We can start to see how certain individuals interact more with each other than others by seeing patterns of participation at different meetings. We call this network modularity and we can visualize different subgroups that exist in this network of participants. In particular, we see four major sub-groups in the network of participants.

Interactive Network Visual

Using the network information, we can map the network in a interactive format. In the map below, each square represents an individual and connected squares mean that they participated together in at least one meeting. The larger the square the more other individuals that person has attended meetings with from Jan. to March.

Geospatial plotting of participants

The participants in the network map above all come from somewhere across the city. The map below plots each meeting participant across the Austin area.

Network centrality

One of the tools frequently used by network analysis is understanding who is “most central” in the network. The table below lists all participants (by their affiliation) and is ordered in descending “degree centrality”. Degree centrality has been associated with both activity as well as influence in planning processes.

Resilience Hub Meeting Participants Descending by Degree Centrality
Affiliation meetings Org.Type TotalDegree
CoA OoS 33 City Agency 102
CoA OoS 21 City Agency 77
CoA OoS 12 City Agency 74
CoA OoS 12 City Agency 69
AISD 10 City Agency 64
CoA OoS 14 City Agency 59
CoA CRO 6 City Agency 52
TARA 10 City Agency 50
AACHI 4 NGO 48
ADRN 4 NGO 48
Community Advancement Network 4 NGO 48
GAVA 4 NGO 48
UT 4 Academia 48
HACA 3 NGO 47
APH 9 City Agency 44
CoA Equity Office 9 City Agency 44
Citizen 3 Private 43
Community Coalition for Health 3 NGO 43
Ascension 4 NGO 40
CoA Equity Office 9 City Agency 40
GAVA 4 NGO 40
Red Cross 4 NGO 40
Travis County ES 6 County Agency 40
Ascension 2 NGO 38
Austin Revitalization Authority 2 City Agency 38
CoA Oos 3 City Agency 38
Community Coalition for Health 3 NGO 38
Community Impact 2 NGO 38
Community Resilience Trust 3 NGO 38
Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Co.  2 NGO 38
Travis County HHS 4 County Agency 38
TACHC 2 NGO 37
Central Texas Food Bank 2 NGO 36
CoA CPIO 3 City Agency 32
CoA Parks & Rec 7 City Agency 32
Travis County HHS 3 County Agency 32
AE 5 City Agency 30
APH 6 City Agency 29
APH 6 City Agency 29
CoA Pub Works 5 City Agency 29
Huston-Tillotson University 2 Academia 29
CoA Pub Works 6 City Agency 27
GAVA 1 NGO 27
TACHC 1 NGO 27
AE 5 City Agency 26
Austin Justice Coalition 1 NGO 26
Red Cross 1 NGO 26
Austin Achieve 1 NGO 25
Black Neighborhood Development Corporation 1 NGO 25
Central Texas Interfaith 0 NGO 25
Community Coalition for Health 1 NGO 25
Community Powered Workshop 1 NGO 25
El Buen Samaritano 0 NGO 25
PUMA 1 NGO 25
Refugee Services of Texas 0 NGO 25
Sustainable Food Center 1 NGO 25
TARA 5 City Agency 25
AISD 3 City Agency 23
ACC 3 Academia 23
CoA APL 3 City Agency 21
Travis County OEM 4 County Agency 21
Travis County 5 County Agency 19
CoA Parks & Rec 3 City Agency 18
AISD 7 City Agency 17
APH 5 City Agency 16
CoA City Manager 3 City Agency 16
CoA HSEM 3 City Agency 16
Travis County 3 County Agency 16
Travis County Environmental Quality 4 County Agency 16
ATD 1 City Agency 15
Austin Water 1 City Agency 15
CoA HSEM 1 City Agency 15
CoA HSEM 7 City Agency 15
UT 1 Academia 15
UT 1 Academia 15
UT 1 Academia 15
UT 1 Academia 15
Central Health 2 NGO 14
CoA CPIO 2 City Agency 14
Travis County OEM 2 County Agency 14
APH 1 City Agency 12
AE 1 City Agency 12
Citizen 1 Private 12
COA Housing 4 City Agency 12
CoA HSEM 2 City Agency 12
Forge Craft Architecture 1 NGO 12
AE 1 City Agency 11
AE 1 City Agency 11
Austin Water 1 City Agency 11
Citizen 1 Private 11
CoA Pub Works 1 City Agency 11
CoA Pub Works 1 City Agency 11
AISD 2 City Agency 10
Travis County OEM 2 County Agency 10
Austin Water 1 City Agency 9
TDEM 3 State Agency 9
TDEM 2 State Agency 9
Travis County 1 County Agency 9
Hays County ES 1 City Agency 8
Quest Realty 1 Private 8
Travis County 1 County Agency 8
Travis County 1 County Agency 8
Red Cross 2 NGO 6